Daily Commentaries 27th Oct 06

Although the market did march ahead as expected, volume was not reflective of the festive season with total volume exceeding 800m shares. Plantation stocks led the rally yesterday on the back of a rebound in crude oil price that led to hopes for future biodiesel demand. For today, newsflow is thin with some notable items including Indonesia seeking bids for over 10 major infrastructure projects worth RM16.5bn and the SC adding 33 companies to the Syariah compliant list. Makro is likely to be sold to 1 of 3 shortlisted bidders including possibly Wal-Mart, Tesco and Dairy Farm. According to unconfirmed sources, MTD Capital may be taken private to make it a holding company for other listed players such as ACPI. Genting exits from London Clubs International to focus on Stanley Leisure while the SC has rejected Nasioncom’s appeal on its private placement. Despite US markets climbing again overnight, the slight dip in oil prices may put pressure on plantation counters that rallied yesterday. As such, we expect rangebound trading today with the KLCI likely to stay between the 980 and 984 pts support and resistance levels respectively.